My first DM attempt in Roll20, Song of Soravia , is going to hit the 13th session this Saturday, March 25th. We started out with an admittedly ambitious 12 players, played a while with 9, but have now settled down at 6 of the original regular folks, which is apparently par for the course on Roll 20. Kind of up in the air whether we need 1 or 2 more players, we're playing that by ear. A homebrew campaign based in the far north of the Forgotten Realms, I tailored it to the "ask" of the community as much as possible, based on the answers to this survey: <a href="http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3031457/New-Survey" rel="nofollow">http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3031457/New-Survey</a> Our awesome playerbase has progressed to an average of 5th level; they've been able to be promoted in their job description(s), uncovered plots against the crown, solved mysteries and uncovered new ones, saved the town (and the beet harvest) from dastardly beet gnomes, completely bought out the local pipeweed shoppe in an insane bid for Find Familiar Incense (he got an Air Gen , go figure), averted a war, coined the phrase "The Osiris Maneuver," rescued damsels and non-damsels, befriended local sewer workers, gotten stoned with Myconids, authorized extraordinary interrogation methods that involved angry sharp-toothed goats, planned the comical demise/comeuppance of certain racist townspeople, and that's just during the "main" sessions on Saturday nights. A well-balanced blend of seriousness and fun, I think. In one-on-one sessions we've explored individual character's personal goals, reinforced NPC relationships, and even undertaken full side quests that may or may not have coincided with the interests of the greater party as a whole - each player is an individual and has full reign to do whatever they want in this campaign, within reason and within my abilities to ad-lib through a session. In the non-playing "downtime" several characters have built fledgling businesses, made preliminary land purchases, gone deep into debt, expanded buildings & built new ones, and even patented their own inventions. Some of this is nonweapon-proficiency-based, and some of it is pure RP. These lead to a modicum of "passive income" which should serve them well when they need funding for things in later levels. Like bribes for bureaucrats. Or raising an army to protect against the unholy minions of marauding ancient evil deities. (Not that that could happen, that's just silly...) There's even a local paper/newsletter which reports on goings-on in Thimble, the main town of Soravia where the players are currently based. Its coverage is not always flattering, and is frequently sensationalistic. We're currently headed into the deep roads / underdark equivalent in order to make sure a particular ally (ally?) is secure, which will quite possibly lead to a major campaign thread/adventure designed as a deep dungeon crawl where the players might not see daylight for several weeks. (Of course, it's up to them: at any point they might say "screw this noise, let's go back and have a beer and check up on our businesses.") Quite literally, none of this would be possible without Roll20 and a really great bunch of players, their interactions just make this campaign hum. I think we all have 5+ hours of fun every week, I hope it's as entertaining for them as it is for me. I'll keep planning out the week's action, adding background content, and whipping up new maps until I run out of ideas... or manage to kill everyone off.
